When stress spikes, leaders flip into survival mode: some become aggressive and rigid, others withdraw entirely. Both responses kill team dynamics and problem-solving by triggering reactive, blaming behavior that shuts down possibilities.
It's critical now because as the stress and anxiety and fear levels go up, current events are going to trigger unfelt feelings. It's going to be far disproportionate to the business circumstance in which it's being triggered. And we'll see one of two survival strategies kick in very quickly: hyperarousal, where people are aggressive and rigid in their thinking and assertive and domineering, or hypoarousal, where people are pulling out withdrawing, going inward, and not contributing their ideas and their thinking and their energy to the conversation. And both of those for team dynamics, for problem solving, for innovation are deadly. Not in the strain on team dynamics when people move into a reactive mode, they get angry, they get more blaming, they get more judgmental, they get more caustic and cynical, and we shut down the hall of possibilities that we wanna tap into.
Reducing Regrettable Attrition in Organizations by Fixing the System, Not the People Reducing Regret
